


Star Bright

by A_Farnese



Series: Penumbra- Missing Scenes [8]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:08:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23262229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Farnese/pseuds/A_Farnese
Summary: Something is keeping Guinevere up at night, and a chance conversation with a friend may be just what she needs.Set after 'A Song for Midwinter'
Series: Penumbra- Missing Scenes [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/228677
Comments: 5
Kudos: 21





	Star Bright

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: 'Merlin' and its characters are not mine. No money is being made from this.

It was a queen’s privilege to go where she willed in a castle, whenever she willed it. Even if that whenever was in the middle of the night.

Guinevere slowed her pace, wishing it was summer, not winter, so she could wear slippers instead of boots. Slippers would silence her steps, ensuring there was nothing to hear but the rustling of linen skirts in the echoing stone halls. But it was winter, and if she wanted to spend time outside in the snow, she would need her boots. Heavy boots that clomped with every step, announcing her presence to anyone nearby. Better that, though, than to spend another stifling minute in her chambers, where every provision had been made to coddle and cosset her, keep her protected and swaddled like a newborn babe, as though queens were too delicate for words and needed to be shielded from stray breezes. 

Or perhaps her discomfort was heightened by the knowledge of where she was sleeping: the Queen’s Chambers, where her predecessor, Ygraine, had lived, slept, and died giving birth to Arthur. 

It always made her uneasy to be sleeping in the same bed where Ygraine had died, even if the rich coverlets and the down-stuffed mattresses had been made new for her. It made her even more uneasy, knowing the Ygraine had died in childbirth, fulfilling her sole duty to the kingdom: producing an heir. A duty Guinevere had yet to fulfill. 

It wasn’t the fact that her monthly courses had come again that troubled her. She was as accustomed to the bleeding as any other healthy woman. What troubled her was how the gossip of it spread throughout the castle like a plague, and along with it the subtle underpinnings of her unsuitability as a queen-- and as a woman. Her barrenness wasn’t for lack of trying. Arthur was a devoted lover, and their nights were as sweet as any bard’s song could ask for. Yet the outcome of it all was supposed to be a child, and as of yet, there was no child.

Niniane assured her that these things could take time. She and Arthur had been married for less than a year. They were both young. There would be children in their future. 

And yet… Every month, the word spread that the queen’s courses were upon her again, and every month Guinevere felt as though she had failed. The weight of the kingdom’s expectations fell firmly upon her shoulders like a great stone she could not shrug off.

So she sought refuge from their expectations in her garden in the middle of a cold winter’s night. If her chambers denied her peace, then perhaps she would find it in her garden. 

She nearly fell as she pushed the door open. She’d thrown most of her weight against it, expecting to shove aside a foot of snow, but it had already been cleared. Perhaps the gardeners had been at it, or the guards, though she hadn’t asked any of them to do it. Part of being queen was directing the servants’ tasks and ensuring that even the most menial of jobs were completed. She had discovered, though, that the castle’s hierarchy made sure than those minor, oft-overlooked duties were completed, whether the queen directed it or not. And so she was not wholly surprised that the garden’s doorway had been cleared. 

What did surprise her was the figure she saw standing in the middle of the garden, cloaked in gray and black, staring up at the star-studded sky as though there were nothing else in the world but him and the heavens above.

“Merlin!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

He turned, and his answering smile wiped away much of the weariness from his face. “I might ask the same of you.”

“It’s my garden,” she said archly as she stepped through calf-deep snow to stand beside him. “I can come here if I want to.”

“Shall I leave you, then?”

“Absolutely not. When do we ever get a chance to talk like we used to do when we were mere servants?”

“I’m still a mere servant,” Merlin said. 

Guinevere raised an eyebrow. “Are you, though? Arthur relies on your counsel more than anyone else’s. Even more so than he does the privy council’s.”

“He shouldn’t. I’m no wiser than the next man. I’m definitely not wiser than a whole group of them.”

“But you’re the one who asks the questions that force him to think. The council tells him the popular course of action. You’re the one who points the way to the wisest path.”

“Is it the wisest path, though? Or does it only seem like it?” Merlin clasped his hands behind his back and stared back up at the stars. “Sometimes I wonder.”

“You don’t give yourself enough credit,” Guinevere said. She moved to take his arm, but he shifted his weight away from her.

“Guards are watching," he said. "I wouldn’t want them to gossip.”

Guinevere rolled her eyes and tugged her cloak tighter around herself. “As though I would forsake my wedding vows, betray my husband with his best friend, and give up everything I’ve gained.”

Merlin chuckled but did not move closer to her. “There are some who might find it romantic.”

Her derisive snort was unbecoming of a queen. “As though a king marrying a servant wasn’t romantic enough.”

“The legends always seem more desirable than mere truth,” Merlin said. “But you didn’t come out here to discuss tales of romance.”

“No,” Guinevere said. She looked up at him, studying him in the moon’s cold, pale light. It bleached the color from his face, but instead of making him look sickly it made him look more like himself. She had always known that he was strange, but the past few years had served to make him otherworldly. She knew him well enough that it didn’t make her nervous, though the same couldn’t be said of many others in the castle. “I’d bet that we’re here for the same reason. Because all this-” she waved her hand in a vague circle to encompass the city, “becomes stifling after a while. Every eye is on you, weighing you, and somehow finding you unworthy.”

“No one finds you unworthy,” Merlin said quickly. 

“I’m a queen with no child.”

“It hasn’t even been a year since you and Arthur were married.”

“That doesn’t matter to the gossips. I keep hearing about women who had their first child within the first year of their marriage. Seems like it’s all I hear about.” She sighed. “And to be honest, I’m a little jealous of them. A lot jealous. One of my chambermaids, Enora, had her first child a few weeks after Imbolc. A little boy. She named him Arthur. He’s a sweet, sweet little boy. Always smiling. Every time she talks about him, she looks so happy. Like she’s found heaven on Earth.” Her voice broke, and she let out a shaking breath. 

Merlin touched her on the shoulder, steadying her. “I don’t think you will always have a reason to be envious.”

“Are you sure?”

“As sure as I am of anything, which is to say, not very.” Merlin chuckled and looked down. The light from the windows limned his face with warmth. “But you all seem to take my surety on faith.”

“You haven’t been wrong so far. We have good reason to take you at your word.” 

He laughed and let out a long breath before turning his gaze back to the stars. After a moment, she looked up, too. High above in the velvet deeps, the stars shimmered like chips of diamonds flung across the heavens. Guinevere studied them for a time, picking out the constellations her father had taught her and Elyan when they were small: the hunter, the queen, the lion, the dragon, and the great bear. She might not remember the stories that went with them, but being able to pick out the shapes and put names to them helped to soothe her fears. If one could put the night sky into order, it made the rest of the world a little less frightening. Already, she felt the weight of the world lifting from her shoulders. “It’s so beautiful. How are we so afraid of the night when all we have to do is look up to see something so beautiful?”

“We fear what we don’t know, and the darkness hides many things in spite of the stars,” Merlin said. 

“You always have such wise answers,” Guinevere said. “I wish you could be more certain about the future.”

Merlin took a breath, the stopped. For a moment he looked immeasurably sad. Then the emotion passed away from his face, and he looked serene again. “There’s a thing my mother told me when I was little. Just a silly thing with no power, but it made me feel better when I was sad or lonely. She told me to find the brightest star in the sky and make a wish upon it, and if I really believed in what I asked for, my wish would be granted.”

“And was it?”

“Was it what?”

Guinevere nudged him in the ribs. “Was your wish granted?”

Merlin’s smile was sad. “Yes. And no.” He did not elaborate, and she did not push for more.

She watched him for a while, wondering what unquiet dreams had driven him from the warmth of his bed and into the wintry night. “Do you think it will work for me?” she finally asked.

He looked down at her and smiled so sweetly that she saw again the awkward country boy he had once been. Before his magic had been revealed, before the unbearable weight of duty had come to rest upon his narrow shoulders. Before the people’s scorn had been directed at him. When he had been a prince’s servant, not a king’s prophet. 

“For you, I think it will,” he said softly.

She laughed at the thought of a star granting her a wish, but gamely looked up at the sky and found the brightest star, sparkling brilliantly in the black depth. Then she closed her eyes and made her wish.


End file.
